[Python-Dev] MS VC 7 offer (original) (raw)

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Thu, 08 May 2003 12:38:44 +0200

Tim Peters wrote:

[Martin v. Lowis]

... Some are sincerely hoping, or even expecting, that Python 2.3 is released with VC7, so that they can embed Python in their VC7-based application without having to recompile it.

No matter what the choice is, somebody will be unhappy. OTOH, I don't see anything to stop releasing VC6 and VC7 versions of Python, except for the absence of a volunteer to do it. While the Wise installer is proprietary, there's nothing hidden about what goes into a release, there are several free installers people could use instead, and the build process for the 3rd-party components is pretty exhaustively documented. Speaking of which, presumably Tcl/Tk and SSL and etc on Windows should also be compiled under VC7 then.

I'm sure commercial players like e.g. ActiveState will happily provide Windows installers for both versions.

Personally I don't think that people will switch to VC7 all that soon -- the .NET libs are still far from being stable and as I read the quotes on the VC compiler included in the .NET SDK, it will only generate code that runs with the .NET libs installed. Could be wrong, though.

Given that tools like distutils probably don't work out of the box with the VC7 compiler suite, I'd wait at least another release before making VC7 binaries the default on Windows.

-- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com

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